In the Legal Actions section of its just filed 10-Q, Wells Fargo confirmed that the bank is the object of an SEC probe, as well as various other government, state and local agencies are looking into its sales practices and reported that a "a number of lawsuits have also been filed by non-governmental parties seeking damages or other remedies related to these sales practices."

And the hits just keep on coming. The full court press on Wells Fargo continues, on the heels of California's sanctions, Bloomberg reports the bank is now facing a Justice Department sanction over improperly repossessing cars owned by members of the military, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.

One day after what was a rather disastrous hearing for Wells CEO John Stumpf, which culminated with a Senator telling the embattled chief executive he may want to consider going to prison, the bad news continued overnight when the bank that overtook Wells in the "biggest US bank by market cap" category, JPMorgan, downgraded Wells to Netural, cutting its price target from $53.50 to $48.00 as a result of "tough Senate hearings and mounting public scrutiny following the opening of fraudulent accounts."

It was considered one of the bigger paradoxes for years. Back in 2003, Warren Buffett famously dubbed derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” and yet over the next several years went ahead and entered a number of the contracts, including both equities and credit, ostensibly by selling CDS to collect up monthly premiums. However, at least when it comes to CDS, after several years of Berkshire trimming its credit derivative exposure, it is now completely out. Meanwhile, Citi is loading up on any CDS it can find...

The New York bank regulator has asked Goldman Sachs to "swiftly report" on its internal review of more than $6 billion in bond sales for 1MDB, Malaysia's failed sovereign wealth fund. In a letter, the New York bank regulator also asked Goldman to provide an overview, by June 14, of every investigation in the U.S. and abroad into its work for the fund. This is bad new for Mr. Kimora Lee.

With the Fed decision just one day away, followed the very next day by the increasingly more irrational BOJ, stocks had no desire to make significant moves and overnight's boring session was the result, as European stocks and U.S. index futures rose modestly but mostly hugged the flatline while Asian declined 0.2% for a third day as raw-material shares declined and Tokyo equities slumped before central bank meetings in the U.S. and Japan this week. China’s stocks rose the most in almost two weeks, up 0.6% but failed to rise above 3000 on the Shanghai Composite, in thin trading.

Yesterday the Federal Reserve released a 19-page letter that it and the FDIC had issued to Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on April 12 as a result of its failure to present a credible plan for winding itself down if the bank failed. The letter carried frightening passages and large blocks of redacted material in critical areas, instilling in any careful reader a sense of panic about the U.S. financial system. The Federal regulators didn’t say JPMorgan could pose a threat to its shareholders or Wall Street or the markets. It said the potential threat was to “the financial stability of the United States.”

"In September, regulators from the OCC, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. met with dozens of energy bankers at Wells Fargo’s office in Houston... Regulators pushed lenders to focus instead on a borrower’s ability to make enough money to repay the loan, according to the person familiar with the discussions."